The Complete Guide To Successful Goal Setting

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What is the point of setting goals? It’s not even that you are more likely to achieve what you want to achieve, though that’s certainly true.

Here are the two biggest benefits of goal setting:

1. Goal setting gives you with focus. You’ll zoom in on the actions you need to take to achieve whatever you desire for your business.

2. You’ll stretch and grow in ways you haven’t before. You’ll become bigger. You’ll become the person you need to be to achieve those goals.

In life, we tend to look long-term and live short-term. In the short-term, you can bump up against some obstacles and challenges. By setting goals, you’ll develop your long-term view.

When those goals are powerful, when they are aligned with your desired impact, you’ll be able to move through those short-term obstacles. You’ll be able to act and ensure that your goals actually are achieved.

The most powerful goals are those that are rooted in impact, in the positive contribution you want to make. Let’s take a look at the 6 elements of IMPACTful goals, to guide you to really potent goal setting.

Impactful

Is your goal aligned with your impact vision? Your impact vision is the difference you want to make in the world, the unique positive contribution that only you can make. You’re unique, so your impact will be too. No one else can bring all of what you bring to your business and your life. Run your goals by this test: is this goal something that will help you move closer to your vision of the impact you want to have?

Measurable

Attach a number to the outcome. What is the tangible outcome if it’s successful? It’s important to define this up front, so you’ll know when you get there! It’ll also help you measure your progress along the way, and provide an important motivator.

Particular

Set a project goal that’s not vague, like ‘I want more business’. Be particular, be specific about what having more business means, e.g., I want 10 more clients, I want 4 larger projects, I want 2 more joint ventures.

Achievable

From where you are now, is this goal a manageable stretch for you? If it’s a goal that makes you so anxious you become paralyzed and don’t take action, it’s not a meaningful goal. Keep your goals in the discomfort zone, so you’ll learn and grow. Near the edge of discomfort you can tolerate, but not beyond it.

Clear

State your goal in a way that someone else would understand it. This is a good litmus test for a goal. If you can describe it to someone else, it’s an IMPACTful goal. Bottom line? Be clear about the outcome that you want.

Time-specific

Attach a timeline to it. There’s some anxiety that goes along with attaching a date. Keep in mind that being time-specific is a lot like plans. They are useful to set, and they may change. So relax a little bit about it, and if you reach your goal a little later because you got one of those large projects, it’s ok. Just don’t make the timeframe so flexible that you don’t take action on it.

While this list has elements similar to other goal descriptors, the important distinction here is that IMPACTful goals focus on your impact, the difference you want to make.

That’s crucial. If you ensure that your goals focus on your impact, you’ll move closer to your impact than you’ve ever dreamed. You’ll be the bigger you who can have that impact.

Click here for the Alchemy Assignment for an important key to effective goal setting!

2 Responses to The Complete Guide To Successful Goal Setting

I find that many of you cannot plan out more than a week at a time. So for any goal to be achievable, they need to be connected to some patterns of behavior you follow on a daily and weekly basis.

For instance, you want to stay healthy. Each day you will go to the gym for 30 minutes and do cardio. Once you build the habit, you’ll start measuring progress.

Another example, you want to complete a project. Each day you will spend 4 hours on the same activity for that project for the full duration of that project. To be successful, you need to restructure all the various activities you do for that project so they become a variant of the same activity. This is what it takes to achieve goals.

Hi Chris! Habits are an important aspect of achieving goals – making a priority a habit means you can move that decision-making brainpower to something else, like creative projects. Thanks for contributing to the conversation!